Canada, Nike Officially Unveil Olympic Hockey Jersey

Team Canada and Nike officially unveiled the 2014 Winter Olympic hockey jersey at a press event in Toronto earlier today. The jerseys match those that had been leaked in various photos during the month of September.

The three jerseys are all taking inspiration from “iconic designs of vintage Canadian jerseys”.

“When designing the new uniforms, we were very purposeful in our approach of blending Canada’s rich hockey history and tradition with the performance needs of today’s athletes,” – Ken Black, Sr. Creative Director at Nike

Closer view of the sublimated maple leaf design from the shoulders shows the smaller leaf is made from jersey material

As we saw with the earlier leaks the jerseys contain a “faux lacing” and sublimated maple leaves design, all part of Nike’s plan to make the jerseys lighter while still incorporating graphics. They call it a “flywire modern collar” resulting in a jersey 15% lighter than those worn at the 2010 Olympic Games. Frankly, it would’ve looked better (and been even lighter) had they just not put either the “laces” or shoulder leaves on the jersey at all.

A close-up view of the fake-laces on the collar — note the stitching going through the middle of the design

“The new Olympic and Paralympic jersey is an emblem of Canada’s passion for hockey. Not only are we proud of the athletes who wear the jersey, but I encourage all Canadians to wear it to show support for our players. These jerseys are distinctly Canadian and will ignite our nation’s pride each time Canada’s athletes take to the ice” – Bob Nicholson, Hockey Canada’s President and CEO

A look at the full uniform courtesy a Tweet from @BKennedyStar

The pants are all black, the socks are a bizarre design — a small stripe of the opposite jersey colour at the top of the sock with a strip of black followed by the jersey colour all the way down the sock. Whatever happened to jersey colour with two thin horizontal contrasting coloured stripes in the middle?

The designs of the three jerseys were officially explained as such:

RED

“The iconic red jersey celebrates the rich history of hockey in Canada. From the vintage-inspired logo on the new lightweight front crest to the Canadian flag on the sleeve and the maple leaf graphics on the shoulders, the new jersey represents Canada from top to bottom.”

WHITE

“Unmistakably Canadian, the white jersey is the perfect complement to the red. With ‘Canada’ standing out proudly in red on the white background of the front logo and the country’s colours flowing through the asymmetrical stripe on the left arm, this jersey is a perfect representation of the pride Canadians feel when it comes to hockey.”

The golden leaf and COC logo on either sleeve of the black alternate jersey

BLACK

“Inspired by memorable vintage Team Canada jerseys, this jersey will inspire our Olympians to win again. The bold ‘Canada’ word mark on the chest reminds the world of Canada’s hockey heritage [“or of the country’s name”, as Clark Rasmussen so eloquently put it], while the gold piping on the badges and gold maple leaf on the shoulders remind the world of Canada’s goal to win gold medals in Sochi.”

The 12 golden leaves have moved from the waist to inside the collar (photo courtesy @SeanFitz_Gerald)

One thing I noticed from this unveiling versus the leaks — no golden maple leaves on the front of the jersey, sounds like they’ll be inside of the collar for the in-game version. Basically this means the jersey you purchase (or don’t purchase) at the store won’t look exactly like what the players are wearing on the ice. It was also confirmed during the press event that the 12 leaves are what we originally thought, representative of the 12 gold medals the Olympic and Paralympic teams have won over the years.

Unfortunately the models at the event did not have any name/number cresting on the backs of their jerseys, so we’ll still have to wait to see how it looks with those sometime in the future.

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Chris Creamer is the founder of SportsLogos.Net and has been maintaining it since June 1997. You can follow him on Twitter at @sportslogosnet or contact him via email at ccreamer@sportslogos.net

Geof

What is going on in the world of sports and Nike? NHL better not dare go back to Nike. I hate to see what would happen if they got their hands on some of the classic NHL sweaters.

PriitJK

They don’t even look like hockey jerseys. If I didn’t know any better and I saw any of the jerseys, I’d just think they’re regular shirts. Big, BIG disappointment compared to what Canada wore in 2010.

Art

Not surprised about the leaves – all that embroidery would likely cause a tear somewhere in that area durin actual play. The Vancouver replicas also had elements that weren’t on the Authentics – there was a Hockey Canada logo on one arm.

If the COC was involved in the design as well – it definitely shows. It seems to follow along the lines of a running/rowing singlet with the horizontal striping around the torso

Not sure what’s sillier, twitter spam traffic picking up last couple months or that hilarious tagline.

Anyways, I don’t mind these jerseys. It’s just bizarre to me that all these hockey nations are stuck without traditional looks anymore. At least with FIFA & FIBA, they just tweak a couple things here & there… now we’re wearing Petro Canada jerseys playing Czech guys wearing their flag.

ingmar66

Shame on you, Nike, for messing up these uniforms. And of course everybody involved is hoping that every Canadian is going to wear them. Ka-ching! This is not about making uniforms lighter and faster, it is about reducing production costs, increasing profit margins and cheapening the look of the game as collateral damage.

Ian k

Why Nike why?! Haven’t we always been good to you? Haven’t we bought your nfl jerseys? Your old Olympic merch? What on earth did we do to deserve this? Also how did absolutely nobody on the IOC have a problem with a black jersey with a red band on only the left arm?

Aaron

The design is so-so, but the jerseys themselves? They don’t even look like hockey jerseys! They look more like undershirts for baseball jerseys.

Aaron

Putting a stripe on the other side of the jersey wouldn’t hurt. This makes me think of the Atlanta Thrashers concept.

Ty

They are just OK. Do the pants have any striping on them? If not, the all black pants would kind of seem out of place.

JeffB

Thus far, I haven’t seen a picture where someone looks enthusiastic to wear this jersey.

steve

those socks are almost as bad as Tampas/Ottawas a few years ago. Brutal..

rafterman

the crap on the shoulders looks so dumb. its like something a figure skater would wear

TW

I think these uni’s look fantastic. Great job Nike! All the haters posting on this site probably wear Canuck jersey’s from the mid 80’s to the bars and go skiing in jeans.

ingmar66

Hahaha! But skiing in jeans is the only proper way to do it! And Canucks jerseys rule.

Bill

Those do NOT look like hockey jerseys. It seems NO ONE at nike has ever watched a Hockey game. Their design looks like something a sleepy 4-year old made with finger paints. Canada deserves better than this gimmick-laden mess.

wayne99

I wanna say “they’re ugly”, but that would be such an understatement. They look like bad soccer jerseys… And the saddest part is I don’t know where to start to describe what is wrong with them…

Aaron

Just a double maple leaf reflection on the shoulders. How would that look as their main logo? Possibly A way to improve the jerseys.

sparky chewbarky

Dear Mr. Nicholson, Really??!!…Fake laces and shiny appliques on long sleeve soccer jerseys are “distinctly Canadian”, as you put it?! The only thing worse than these sweaters, is the ‘gag-me’ gobbledegoop of a sales pitch. Instead of B.S.-ing Canadians that “these sweaters will ignite our nation’s pride”, you should have told Nike to jam their shiny, fakey crap.

Jed

Seriously, what the hell are they drinking and smoking at Nike HQs? Is this for real? It’s bad enough they butchered the NFL, US soccer and hockey jerseys, but now they’re doing the same to the Canadian ones? I mean, when does the insanity stop?

MM

Why do we keep letting Nike design hockey jerseys? They do a crappy job and turn our national team into a fashion disaster. If I was picked for Team Canada for the Olympics, I would turn it down to ensure I would not wear these horrible jerseys.

michael

They look like rugby shirts.

Even though I’m sure no one at Nike knows what rugby is.

Olivier Demers

Facepalm.

Hotrod2001

Team Canada’s jerseys from Vancouver were far better looking.

Brad

If you’ve had a look at the other Olympic 2014 hockey team jersey designs… Russia, Czech Rep., USA – Nike has minimized and simplified each of the countries identities to a degree where I really don’t think they could be taken a tiny step more. The reversing of the Russian eagle into what now looks like a comical dual-head, hat wearing, fried-chicken outlet logo = crazy. I used to look upon the traditional Russian jersey with respect, simply because of the gold colour straight-on visual of eagle crest. Czech Rep. having the traditional blue downward point/tri-colour jersey altered to horizontal stripes of the three colours? now they could be any number of teams that use red/white/blue. aka – USA, simple red/white/blue, little badge with stripes, etc., not too much to say really ’bout it. Canada… again, simple as simple can get, Petro-Canada logo look-a-like I’ve heard, and heard, and heard. The jerseys I can handle, but with those socks they don’t work, clean and simple up top, black pants, then a busy tri-coloured banded sock? wrong. Nike has done a perfect job of homogenizing all the hockey countries unique symbols and brands into what feels like translucent, foggy, ultra-over-designed and refined Nike hockey video game national team identities.